Master league SUCKS

Yup, it’s terrible. My kid is in Masters with a level 7-9 hangar. I ran into him in a game the other day, with my full green hangar. He’s excited cause he just got a Hades ffs. Matchmaking needs fixing.

It is without a doubt the absolute worst I’ve ever seen in this game. I have to shut it down after just one game, because literally every aspect of game play is just too frustrating. It’s flaming pigs running around everywhere, then stealthed Ao Jun’s or purple glowing leeches, then a sky full of Mings. There is nothing remotely enjoyable about playing this game right now. It’s finally reached the level of stupid I’ve been expecting it would for a couple of years now ... and surpassed it. 

Yup, there’s a hard wall between Expert 1 and Master 3. Above it is basically Master+Champion because there’s not enough champ players so the MM widens and widens and pulls in masters. But the widening seems to be capped at Master 3, hence the wall, and it’s often hitting that wall.

I tried for a long time to stay in Expert 1 by using weaker and weaker hangars but I’d have to start using unfun bots now and the league point inflation gimmicks would push me up anyways. So I’ve drifted into Master 3 a few weeks ago and, whatever, I’ve gotten used to it. Battles are chock full of Ravana which are boring to fight but slightly less boring than trying to stay in Expert 1. And there’s just as many non-drops, afk, and tankers in Masters.

Anymore I just try to do the daily tasks. Wins feel empty because the afks were red or we had the hyper-meta-champ so it’s not like we actually ‘won’ or outplayed them. And losses are just the same thing in reverse. It doesn’t mean anything.

Something that might help that I’ve been doing is don’t try to be the first wave of attack or beacon grabbing at start of battle. Hang back a bit and follow behind your teammates and then chip in where you can.

PREACH BROTHER!

Yeah, absolutely my experience. I've had to keep readjusting the internal canon I have going in my head.

The invasion is going really badly for the good guys and my unit is equipped with obsolete bots pulled out of storage, wreck dumps and secondary areas. Nevertheless, we've got to help hold the line or all is lost.

Outside of my head, I realize that I have almost zero effect on the actual game result.

Sometimes part of me, when my fellow blues are shooting me at the start or head-shaking me, silently shouts Rorschach's line at them, “I'm not trapped in here with you, YOU'RE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME,” ?

Master league is an odd place. I was in it for a good long while there initially with MM bouncing me back and forth between E1 and M3. Matches seemed like either fairly matched or I was the sole Master League player amongst a sea of high Champs and ready for my beat down. It was truly eye opening to see the dichotomy between the two types of games. At some point you’ll be pushed up to Champs like many of the rest of us and it will be only one type of game.

Ummm, if you read certain comments in forum, you'll realize that for some high level players your level 8 non meta gears is a burden to the team. Even you've tried your best, you'll still be considered as a moron/useless/「smart person」 that make them loose their one very precious game.
My sympathy OP.

I think this is an accurate depiction of their thoughts of 2 Champions League teamed up with 4 masters.

But, my thoughts of the Champions League's

Masters League is a breeze when I played DOM. Not sure about BR but that mode hasn't been what I consider playable in ages.

I don't know. I'm in champ now. And yesterday had a Champions League level played a pursuer with noricums all match in Yam. We were all Champions League..

Pix appears to be leveling more bans lately for tanking. A few here on the forum have gotten it for simply running legacy bots in Champions League games.

I can’t blame leavers but it does make for a 「dookie」ty game, especially if it’s done in a way to score some damage and stay past the leave timer so they don’t get replaced. The intent is to ensure their side loses and they get the most negative points.

Isn’t that what FFA is for, where you don’t hurt teammates?

I mentioned this in another thread:



The game is getting frustratingly unplayable between lag, inflation of the prizes, deathqsuads and meta players domination, etc.

Less than a minute and you already got spawn raided.

No, really. Like all of a sudden every one of my bots is made of glass. I get insta-melted by everything that takes aim at me. Even my level 38 Arthur. It reminds me of back a few years ago, the first time I rage-quit, anger I had dropped a few hundred $$$ building up a near 12/12 hangar, and they decided to introduce Mk2, sphincters and sharttrains, and I’d go for days where I swear they nerfed my entire hangar. A few weeks ago I was usually 1-2 every game, win or lose; now I’m dead last every game, even when there are Experts and other Masters on my team. And 9 games out of 10 my team gets absolutely smoked, both in beacon caps and kills. I just don’t get it.

Oh yeah, and I already saw my first @#$&*%! Scorpion today. Isn’t life glorious.

Consider this my last stand, of sorts, I guess. After all these months with this ‘smurf’ account trying to keep my progress low and slow, I finally broke down and opened a fourth hangar slot. I have plenty of usable bots and weapons all in the lvl 6-8 range to throw in there, so I figured why continue to hamstring myself here with the competition as stiff as it is. So now I’m running:
Lvl 7 Leech with lvl 6 wasps and pulsars
Lvl 8 Rayker with lvl 9 Avenger and Puns
Lvl 9 Tyr with lvl 8 tasers
and lvl 8 Loki with lvl 8 rime and magnums

First 4-slot game was another white-wash - all 4 bots gone in under 2 minutes, titan was barely half charged. Just got overrun by fast, big gunned reds early and couldn’t do squat. Second game ran Leech, Rayker and Loki, never made it to Tyr or titan, because for a change the blues did the running over. I still finished second to last, because I only managed to grab one beacon and those weapons just don’t do crap for damage. But the Loki occupied about half the team for the last minute or so, so I take some pride in that, even though there’s no silver in it.

Before adding the 4th slot, I almost got bounced out of Master - all those beatdowns took their toll. Maybe I’ll have more of a fighting chance to stay there now. Whatever happens, at 2-3 games a day, it won’t happen fast.    Got a bunch of weapons that can almost affordable be taken up another level or two, but that’s not gonna happen fast, either. Also have a Ravana that’s about a week away from done; a set of lvl 8 storms on it could also change the complexion of things. Eventually. I figure that should be about the time we start getting overrun by Scorpions, which is pretty much my whole experience with this game in a nutshell. 

Edit: Yeah, right. Next game, I barely got Arthur charged before my 4 bots got melted, and then faced a maxed taser Ming that I did almost no damage to before it chewed through my shields. Fighting chance, my arse. 

Right now, just trying to find any kind of a hint of enjoyment from playing. But there is none. It’s just game after game after game facing mostly well-leveled Champions. Even the few I win, I’m still dead last. I can still drop back to Expert just as easily with 4 bots as with 3 - just kamikaze it from the start, and I can be out of most games in under 2 minutes causing almost no damage if I want to play that way.

But now that I’m here, I’m trying to alter my game play and figure out how to at least survive and get some semblance of a return for my efforts, which for all of this past week has been utterly futile. Finishing at the bottom of the team earns you squat, win or lose, and no matter how hard I try to play smart, that’s where I end up. Every damn game. It’s like everybody is running boosters and all my gear got nerfed back to level 1. In all my years of playing, I’ve never seen it this bad.